Politics Report: Another Opportunity Downtown

Friday, news spread that the Japanese company Iida Group Holdings had put up for sale the empty lot at 4th and B that used to be a concert venue. It’s sandwiched between the Civic Theatre and City Hall and the dilapidated California Theater building, which is also for sale. The city has been trying to get someone to tear it down.

Iida had intended to turn it into a hotel tower with office and retail space but this just isn’t the market for that. Although they were close on getting full entitlement for that, it’s probably going to become something else.

“What Iida has entitled there is beautiful. Someone with a long-term vision could build something special there,” said Erik Anderson, the San Diego managing director of Newmark. 

“That’s a tough plan, though. right now. There’s a large office component to that. High rise costs are prohibitive, at this time. We’ve gotten some interest from groups who think they can pull that off but there’s a whole lot you could do with the site. It’s a blank slate,” Anderson told me.

The 4th and B news is just the latest in the ongoing story of what’s going to happen in the middle of San Diego’s middle. The civic core of downtown is by far its bleakest.

When Is the Horton Plaza Conversation Starting?

Of all the properties whose future is uncertain, the most interesting is Horton Plaza. And one guy who is often at the center of these conversations, Gary London, thinks it is well past time for the city of San Diego to talk about moving City Hall there.

And he is doing something about it. He is overseeing a study of the current Civic Center land and how much money it could generate along with the costs of moving employees and the heart of the city to the site of the first great downtown redevelopment project.

“I worked for Pete Wilson when he was mayor and I have felt over decades that one of the issues catapulted him into go was he could condemn 10 acres and turn it into Horton Plaza. It’s that kind of leadership voters recognized and we need it again,” London said.

Background: Real estate investing firm AllianceBernstein owns Horton Plaza now after taking it over from Stockdale Capital Partners in August. Stockdale lost it when its plans to attract tech and then life-sciences tenants fell through before the big bills started coming from AllianceBernstein. Now the lender has to figure out what to do with most of the 10 acres, most of it built for offices.

Downtown office space is plentiful. At the waterfront, the RADD development celebrated the news that the J. Craig Ventner Institute was taking 50,000 square feet. But that made little dent in the 1.7 million square feet of beautiful office space it created.

(The U-T’s Jennifer Van Grove has done great reporting on all of this stuff.)

To London, all of this means the city has a once in a century opportunity to address its own dilapidated office structure.

“What we have is an opportunity to once again use Horton Plaza to revitalize the most important area of downtown to serve as an anchor to redevelop all the properties around it,” he said. “The mayor and Council have this opportunity sitting in their lap. It would be felonious not to take it. They’re selling these properties at 30 percent of value.”

The other study: The Downtown Partnership and Prebys Foundation are also in the middle of their own economic study of the Civic Center properties and what could be done.

London thinks it could all work together perfectly.

“If the city moves into the office portion at Horton Plaza and AllianceBernstein cuts different deals on retail, hotel and residential portions, then you have the makings of a grand new redevelopment district, which is consistent with Prebys and Downtown Partnership vision for the Civic Center,” he said.

Now 4th and B and the California Theater. Either something big is going to happen for the whole area or it’s going to get even uglier.

More

All eyes (well some eyes) on city attorney: Will Huntsberry did a good job this week explaining the theory of how the redevelopment of the city’s nearly 50 acres of land at Sports Arena could go forward even after the Court of Appeal, once again, reinstated the 30-foot building height limit for Midway.

Midway Rising’s leaders think the state’s density bonus laws that allow developers to build more densely than local zoning allows if they build affordable housing will allow them to go past the height limit. It would be the biggest test in the state yet of that principle: that state housing laws trump local ones. And the core of the question is whether a new arena fits. You can build commercial space as part of an “affordable housing” project but the arena is a separate, giant building. Does that count too?

The mayor is adamant that failure here is not an option. However he has noticeably not endorsed the density bonus theory fully. That’s because we have yet to hear from City Attorney Heather Ferbert about whether she believes the project is legal still.

New tax collector: After the abrupt retirement of Dan McAllister, county supervisors appointed Larry Cohen, the chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Juan Vargas, as the new treasurer-tax collector.

It’s a big job – the treasurer manages many investment pools for the county and other agencies and has a big role on the county employees’ pension board. It’s one of the few elected offices that covers the entire county (along with district attorney, sheriff and assessor) and, unlike the supervisors, there are no term limits.

And now that job is Cohen’s to lose. He confirmed he plans to run for it.

“It’s a great honor to be chosen and I look forward to serving the people of San Diego,” Cohen said. “I do intend to run for a full term next November.”

City finally defunded the (dog) police: Old friend Claire Trageser, now at Axios, broke the news this week that the city is no longer handing out tickets to people who have their dogs off leash where they’re not supposed to.

As part of their cuts to the city’s budget this summer, the San Diego City Council and mayor cut $1.5 million of funding for the Humane Society and the dog cops that patrolled off-leash hot spots.

If you have any ideas or feedback for the Politics Report, send them to scott.lewis@voiceofsandiego.org.

The post Politics Report: Another Opportunity Downtown appeared first on Voice of San Diego.